University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 5-10-2019 Highway 61: Good Roads, Great Migrations, and Delta Blues Samuel Willcoxon University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, and the History Commons Recommended Citation Willcoxon, Samuel, "Highway 61: Good Roads, Great Migrations, and Delta Blues" (2019). Honors Theses. 1000. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1000 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. HIGHWAY 61: GOOD ROADS, GREAT MIGRATIONS, AND DELTA BLUES By: Samuel Willcoxon A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Oxford April 2019 Approved by: Advisor: Professor Darren Grem Reader: Professor Adam Gussow Reader: Professor Ted Ownby 2 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...... 4 CHAPTER 1……………………………………………………………………………....9 CHAPTER 2……………………………………………………………………………..22 CHAPTER 3……………………………………………………………………………..32 CHAPTER 4……………………………………………………………………………..43 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………….62 3 Abstract This thesis analyzes the social and racial factors that contributed to the cultural significance of U.S. Highway 61. First, I explore the background of road building and transportation in the United States. Next I detail the history of convict labor in the South, from convict leasing to convict labor on roads as a result of the Good Roads Movement. Third, I describe how economic and social conditions contributed to the out-migration of southerners during the twentieth century.